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Commentary & Analysis

In timely and incisive analysis, our experts parse the latest development news and devise practical solutions to new and emerging challenges. Our events convene the top thinkers and doers in global development.

It’s been three years since the rollout of the DREAMS program began, and earlier this month in collaboration with the Population Council, CGD convened key players to discuss emerging results, what they mean for the future of DREAMS, and how we can ensure that the next years of programming go even farther to deliver the most effective services to those most at risk.

In its opening days, the Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen has bestowed praise and congratulations on the women’s rights advocacy community writ large—and appropriately so. Some of the panelists have risked their lives and livelihoods to create a better world for women and girls; recognition of their accomplishments is truly the least we can do. Many others have dedicated their distinguished careers to this cause, trailblazing the path for later generations. But there’s a lot we still have to accomplish.

Although President Obama will be plenty busy during the remainder of his first term working with Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff, he need not wait until the start of his second term to further his vision for making US policy more supportive of global poverty reduction.

Here is what I liked about President Obama’s UN speech on development last week, what I liked less, and what to watch for next. I conclude with an epilogue on this week’s historic gathering of secretaries Clinton, Gates, and Geithner, USAID Administrator Shah, and Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Daniel Yohannes for the U.S.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Development held a hearing last week on “USAID in the 21st Century: What Do We Need for the Task at Hand?” CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet, Georgetown professor and CGD visit

An open letter to President Obama and congressional leaders on the importance of global development and foreign assistance reform was published in Politico last week on behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) and signed by more than 150 influential individuals and organizations. The letter says, in part: